Sunday, March 05, 2017

The Power of Words Exhibit

I believe that words have power—to inspire and comfort us and to increase our awareness and affect both personal and communal change. In the late 16th century, Michel de Montaigne wrote, “I quote others to better express myself.” Here in the early 21st century, I take great sustenance from a beautifully phrased expression of a universal truth. I feel a deep connection across time and space with my fellow inhabitants of this earth. I have chosen quotes that are a continuing source of renewal for me. Each time I read them, they speak to me with fresh energy. I hope their immediacy and power will speak to you as well.
The Power of Words exhibition at the Clare Gallery closes this coming Friday. On January 14, I created the ten large scale calligraphic pieces in the gallery before an audience. I did a lot of practice and preparation but the actual work was done quickly and directly without guidelines or sketching. I used a 1.25" brush and Golden Fluid Acrylic diluted with acrylic flow medium. The smaller brush was for the author's name and the bamboo twig for stirring.

That day we were too busy driving to CT and then preparing the paper to have much time for nerves, but I did do some fretting the week before. Here is a gallery view before I started. I needed the stool for the top line.

I'm not sharing more of the process here as I'm writing an article for Bound & Lettered about that, but I do have a web page with photos of the individual pieces, a larger excerpt and the source of each quote as well as a little bit about my connection to it, an article from the Hartford Courant, and a video of part of the "performance." I hope to do more of this. My next goal is to feel comfortable enough with the performance aspect to write the word without quotes around it.

2 comments:

I shared this post with my yoga teacher as the quotations in the top photo mirrored discussions we've had lately. Only when I followed your link to your website did I realize there were even more quotations and that you had generously provided a pdf of the page to download. Thanks!